Tetrad telling a story
Seems to be a parlor game: You have that "aha" moment
Let's try to formalize the tetrad
Maybe "empowers" rather than "enhances"
the relationship between a and b that technology reveals
if true that tetrad= canonical formula reveals something fundamental about human consciousness: tretrad reveals human agency in technology impact and implies that we can control if we understand it.
Levinson remediation
Purpose of myth is to reconcile incompatibilities; purpose of tetrad is to reconcile technological incomoatibilities, that is, to reconcile incomoatible human activities under the influence of technology
Technology doesn't "act." The tetrad assumes human agency. Instead of the concrete actor of a mythic tale, McLuhan gives us the abstract "actor" embodied in a particular technology. But, excluding artificial intelligence, only humans can be actors.
When there isn't a human actor/agency (Technological: Terminator, Matrix; Natural: vampires, zombies.) always a dystopia)
Luckas analogy variation of CF
enhances "a" obsolesces "b"
fx(a) = enhances
fy(b) = obsolesces
[f(x)(d1,h1)] : [f(y)(d2,h1)]:
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Eric Csapo on Levi-Strauss
The solution is never logical, strictly speaking, but it imitates logic. If the problem were capable of a purely logical solution, there would be no need to have recourse to myth. But myth can do what logic cannot, and so it serves as a kind of cultural trouble-shooter. Rather than thinking of it as a kind of placebo which creates the mere impression of solution to a problem, it may be regarded as a mechanism for relieving anxiety.
Csapo, Eric, 2005, ‘Theories of Mythology‘, p.226 (Blackwell Publishing)
Csapo, Eric, 2005, ‘Theories of Mythology‘, p.226 (Blackwell Publishing)
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
McLuhan on structure of metaphor
When these questions had been considered with regard to dozens of media and technologies, there came a surprising discovery, namely that all the extensions of man, verbal or non-verbal, hardware or software, are essentially metaphoric in structure, and that they are in the plenary sense linguistic, a fact long accepted by the Bambara and the Dogon tribes, among many others. A "metaphor" means literally "carrying across" from Greek metaferein and was translated into Latin as "translatio." In a word, metaphor is a kind of bridging process, a way of getting from one kind of experience to another. This reaching out always involves a resonating interval rather than a mere connection. When a wag said, "Man's reach must exceed his grasp or what's a metaphor?" he was "right on." Each "side" of the resonating interval is an area of "touch," and in the sensory experience of "touch" there is never a connection but always a gap or an interval. Between the wheel and the axle, the interval (and not the connection) is "where the action is." That is to say, there is a large acoustic factor in touch and in metaphor alike — the audile-tactile.
From a structural "point of view" a metaphor has four terms which are discontinuous, yet in ratio to one another. Aristotle pointed this out in his De Anima (Book III, Chapter VIII):
A four-part analogy is afigure-ground structure. (In a metaphor there are two figures and two grounds in ratio to one another.) Apropos the four-part structure which relates to all human artifacts (verbal and non-verbal), their existence is certainly not deliberate or intentional. Rather, they are a testimony to the fact that the mind of man is structurally inherent in all human artifacts and hypotheses whatever. Whether these ratios are also present in the structure of the "natural" world raises an entirely separate question. It is perhaps relevant to point out that the Greeks made no entelechies or studies of the effects of man-made technology, but only of what they considered the objects of the natural world.
From a structural "point of view" a metaphor has four terms which are discontinuous, yet in ratio to one another. Aristotle pointed this out in his De Anima (Book III, Chapter VIII):
It follows that the soul is analogous to the hand; for as the hand is a tool of tools, so the mind is the form of forms and sense the form of sensible things.
A four-part analogy is afigure-ground structure. (In a metaphor there are two figures and two grounds in ratio to one another.) Apropos the four-part structure which relates to all human artifacts (verbal and non-verbal), their existence is certainly not deliberate or intentional. Rather, they are a testimony to the fact that the mind of man is structurally inherent in all human artifacts and hypotheses whatever. Whether these ratios are also present in the structure of the "natural" world raises an entirely separate question. It is perhaps relevant to point out that the Greeks made no entelechies or studies of the effects of man-made technology, but only of what they considered the objects of the natural world.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Levi-Strauss & McLuhan
Here is my quick take on Lévi-Strauss's contribution to Media Ecology: His approach to the interpretation of so-called "primitive" cultures revealed the complex patterns of thought that went into the development of systems of myth and kinship. His notion that "primitive" intellectual activities were equal to our "modern" systems of knowledge, just applied to differing objects, put the entire body of anthropological writings, going back to James Fraser's Golden Bough into a new perspective.
Lévi-Strauss's work, building on the linguistic structuralism of Ferdinand de Saussure and the evolutionary approach to cultural studies of Franz Boas, revealed the biases in the use of terms such as "primitive" and "modern" (even though Lévi-Strauss himself used these terms), and paved the way for Walter Ong's distinction between orality, literacy and secondary-orality as more appropriate explanations for differing cultures. Lévi-Strauss discovered and demonstrated connections between seemingly disparate mythic stories, and offered explanations for seemingly random elements of those stories. His methodology can be used as model for ways to interpret the products of contemporary culture, which, while seeming to be unrelated, actually constitute a system (or systems) of symbolic meanings.
I find the tools Lévi-Strauss provides useful in a number of ways. I also think that his notion of "things that are good to think with" as powerful as Postman's question regarding a new technology: "What problem does it provide a solution to?" I like Lévi-Strauss's idea that a myth is not a "false" story or idle tale, but rather a dynamic technique which members of a culture use to address cultural discrepancies. To me, this is a compelling explanation for why myths persist in a culture. It may also explain how, if we know where to look, we can identify the mythic systems of our own culture that provide us with a coherent world view in the face of constant change and turmoil.
Myths cannot be considered singly. One must absorb the entire canon of a culture to understand all the connections and interactions. That may be why we can't analyze Greek mythology properly. Too little of it has come down to us, and the versions we read have undergone so many revisions that they may not truly represent the originals. I know that structuralism has been somewhat in eclipse in academic circles lately; that Lévi-Strauss has been accused of a binary focus that, being Hegelian in origin, cannot apply to current thinking about media. I think that to write off Lévi-Strauss's methodology as a thesis/antithesis/synthesis intellectual game misses the subtlety of his analysis. A closer reading of all 2200+ pages of his Mythologiques shows that, while he may begin an analysis by identifying polar opposites, this is only a starting point. The analysis of a mythic system must account for far more that just a pair of opposites.
In the course of his analysis of the myths of the Tupi Indians, Lévi-Strauss moves spiral-like through multiple mythic variations and multiple opposing pairs and by proceeding A to B and B to C, etc., demonstrates internal consistencies within the mythic system that aren't immediately apparent to an outside observer. In other words, Lévi-Strauss provides a useful tool for analysis regardless of whether you wish to extrapolate the function of the method to the deeper structures of the human mind or not.
I also find Lévi-Strauss's methodology completely compatible with McLuhan's Laws of the Media. Where McLuhan, via the Tetrad asks us to consider what a technology or medium enhances, obsolesces, retrieves and reverses into, Lévi-Strauss will start with a pair of opposites "A" and "B", but in the course of his analysis will present examples of what he calls " A' " (A prime) and " B' " (B prime) as recursive iterations of the original pair. Perhaps someone will someday conduct a Lévi-Straussian analysis of McLuhan's system of myths. Lévi-Strauss is also compatible with Ong's notions of primary orality. Ong discusses how different human thought processes must be without text. Lévi-Strauss gives example after example of exactly how these thought processes work.
I don't recall Lévi-Strauss discussing the poetry of the Tupi Indians as a means of perpetuating the culture, but he does demonstrate how interconnected myths can act as intellectual place holders for a non-literate population to help them consider complex systems of thought. Our current system of myths is not only presented verbally, but also via images, in print, and even in interplay of biases amongst all of our competing media. Since we may be relearning this manner of thinking as we move deeper into secondary orality, Lévi-Strauss provides us with a map of where we may be headed.
Lévi-Strauss's work, building on the linguistic structuralism of Ferdinand de Saussure and the evolutionary approach to cultural studies of Franz Boas, revealed the biases in the use of terms such as "primitive" and "modern" (even though Lévi-Strauss himself used these terms), and paved the way for Walter Ong's distinction between orality, literacy and secondary-orality as more appropriate explanations for differing cultures. Lévi-Strauss discovered and demonstrated connections between seemingly disparate mythic stories, and offered explanations for seemingly random elements of those stories. His methodology can be used as model for ways to interpret the products of contemporary culture, which, while seeming to be unrelated, actually constitute a system (or systems) of symbolic meanings.
I find the tools Lévi-Strauss provides useful in a number of ways. I also think that his notion of "things that are good to think with" as powerful as Postman's question regarding a new technology: "What problem does it provide a solution to?" I like Lévi-Strauss's idea that a myth is not a "false" story or idle tale, but rather a dynamic technique which members of a culture use to address cultural discrepancies. To me, this is a compelling explanation for why myths persist in a culture. It may also explain how, if we know where to look, we can identify the mythic systems of our own culture that provide us with a coherent world view in the face of constant change and turmoil.
Myths cannot be considered singly. One must absorb the entire canon of a culture to understand all the connections and interactions. That may be why we can't analyze Greek mythology properly. Too little of it has come down to us, and the versions we read have undergone so many revisions that they may not truly represent the originals. I know that structuralism has been somewhat in eclipse in academic circles lately; that Lévi-Strauss has been accused of a binary focus that, being Hegelian in origin, cannot apply to current thinking about media. I think that to write off Lévi-Strauss's methodology as a thesis/antithesis/synthesis intellectual game misses the subtlety of his analysis. A closer reading of all 2200+ pages of his Mythologiques shows that, while he may begin an analysis by identifying polar opposites, this is only a starting point. The analysis of a mythic system must account for far more that just a pair of opposites.
In the course of his analysis of the myths of the Tupi Indians, Lévi-Strauss moves spiral-like through multiple mythic variations and multiple opposing pairs and by proceeding A to B and B to C, etc., demonstrates internal consistencies within the mythic system that aren't immediately apparent to an outside observer. In other words, Lévi-Strauss provides a useful tool for analysis regardless of whether you wish to extrapolate the function of the method to the deeper structures of the human mind or not.
I also find Lévi-Strauss's methodology completely compatible with McLuhan's Laws of the Media. Where McLuhan, via the Tetrad asks us to consider what a technology or medium enhances, obsolesces, retrieves and reverses into, Lévi-Strauss will start with a pair of opposites "A" and "B", but in the course of his analysis will present examples of what he calls " A' " (A prime) and " B' " (B prime) as recursive iterations of the original pair. Perhaps someone will someday conduct a Lévi-Straussian analysis of McLuhan's system of myths. Lévi-Strauss is also compatible with Ong's notions of primary orality. Ong discusses how different human thought processes must be without text. Lévi-Strauss gives example after example of exactly how these thought processes work.
I don't recall Lévi-Strauss discussing the poetry of the Tupi Indians as a means of perpetuating the culture, but he does demonstrate how interconnected myths can act as intellectual place holders for a non-literate population to help them consider complex systems of thought. Our current system of myths is not only presented verbally, but also via images, in print, and even in interplay of biases amongst all of our competing media. Since we may be relearning this manner of thinking as we move deeper into secondary orality, Lévi-Strauss provides us with a map of where we may be headed.
Levi-Strauss & McLuhan
It seems to me that there is an unspoken assumption in Media Ecology that there are no differences in the intellectual capabilities of peoples of different ages or technological achievement. By this I don't mean differences in sensory balances, which may be determined by the particular technologies or media of communication available, but rather differences in the basic structure and capacity of the human mind.
When we use the terms, "oral" or "literate" or "post literate" in lieu of "primitive" or "modern", we are not referring to intellectual complexity or intelligence, but rather the modes of thought, the uses of systems of symbols and the religious, social and psychology outlooks encouraged or discouraged by a media environment.
I therefore suggest that the foundations of Media Ecological epistemology would benefit by the inclusion of some of the ideas contained in some of the writings of French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, including The Savage Mind, Totemism and any volume of Mythologiques, but especially, The Raw and the Cooked. Lévi-Strauss's work came at a time when anthropologists in general were abandoning the belief of James Frazer and the other pioneer anthropologists that pre-literate peoples were somehow more primitive, more childlike or less intellectually capable than modern man. (This viewpoint, by the way, still contributes to the foundation beliefs of all modern racism).
Lévi-Strauss's explorations of the structures of pre-literate societies demonstrated that there existed a complexity of thought and a subtlety of mind equal to our own. Some critics get hung up on discrepancies within the structural methodology which Lévi-Strauss used to explain mythology, totemic systems and kinship systems. Other criticism focus on how a particular interpretation doesn't fit the recorded ethnography for a culture. While the methodology itself, or its particular application may be subject to review and revision, what is important is that Levi-Strauss demonstrated that there is a universality to the human mind, and given sufficient symbolic material, all peoples, whether within an oral culture, a literate culture or our post literate culture still retain a commonality with can be explored through their symbol systems and perhaps understood in terms of the underlying structures transmitted via the stories we tell.
If it is possible to distinguish a "primitive" mind from our own then how could we apply Marshall McLuhan's Laws of the Media universally across all cultures and time periods? We can talk about the sensory impact of different types of communication media in different eras only if we accept that the basic mental equipment and the capacity for intellectual activity we are born with has been the same throughout all human history and everywhere in the world.
Lévi-Strauss's approach to the interpretation of so-called "primitive" cultures revealed the complex patterns of thought that went into the development of systems of myth and kinship. Building on the linguistic structuralism of Ferdinand de Saussure and the evolutionary approach to cultural studies of Franz Boas, his work exposed our own biases in the use of terms such as "primitive" and "modern" (even though Lévi-Strauss himself used these terms), and paved the way for Walter Ong's distinction between orality, literacy and secondary-orality as more appropriate explanations for differing cultures.
Levi-Strauss's notion that "primitive" intellectual activities were equal to our "modern" systems of knowledge, just applied to differing objects, put the entire body of anthropological writings, going back to James Fraser's Golden Bough into a new perspective. Lévi-Strauss discovered and demonstrated connections between seemingly disparate mythic stories, and offered explanations for seemingly random elements of those stories. His methodology can be used as model for ways to interpret the products of contemporary culture, which, while seeming to be unrelated, actually constitute a system (or systems) of symbolic meanings.
I find the tools Lévi-Strauss provides useful in a number of ways. I also think that his notion of "things that are good to think with" as powerful as Neil Postman's question regarding a new technology: "What problem does it provide a solution to?" I like Lévi-Strauss's idea that a myth is not a "false" story or idle tale, but rather a dynamic technique which members of a culture use to address cultural discrepancies. To me, this is a compelling explanation for why myths persist in a culture. It may also explain how, if we know where to look, we can identify the mythic systems of our own culture that provide us with a coherent world view in the face of constant change and turmoil.
Myths cannot be considered one at a time. One must absorb the entire canon of a culture to understand all the connections and interactions. That may be why we can't analyze Greek mythology properly. Too little of it has come down to us, and the versions we read have undergone so many revisions that they may not truly represent the originals.
I know that structural anthropology has been somewhat in eclipse in academic circles lately; that Lévi-Strauss has been accused of a binary focus that, being Hegelian in origin, cannot apply to current thinking about media. I think that to write off Lévi-Strauss's methodology as a thesis/antithesis/synthesis intellectual game misses the subtlety of his analysis. A closer reading of all 2200+ pages of his Mythologiques shows that, while he may begin an analysis by identifying polar opposites, this is only a starting point. The analysis of a mythic system must account for far more that just a pair of opposites.
In the course of his analysis of the myths of the Tupi Indians, Lévi-Strauss moves spiral-like through multiple mythic variations and multiple opposing pairs and by proceeding A to B and B to C, etc., demonstrates internal consistencies within the mythic system that aren't immediately apparent to an outside observer. In other words, Lévi-Strauss provides a useful tool for analysis regardless of whether you wish to extrapolate the function of the method to the deeper structures of the human mind or not. I also find Lévi-Strauss's methodology completely compatible with McLuhan's Laws of the Media. Where McLuhan, via the Tetrad asks us to consider what a technology or medium enhances, obsolesces, retrieves and reverses into, Lévi-Strauss will start with a pair of opposites "A" and "B", but in the course of his analysis will present examples of what he calls " A' " (A prime) and " B' " (B prime) as recursive iterations of the original pair. Perhaps someone will someday conduct a Lévi-Straussian analysis of McLuhan's system of myths.
Lévi-Strauss is also compatible with Ong's notions of primary orality. Ong discusses how different human thought processes must be in a pre-literate society. Lévi-Strauss gives example after example of exactly how these thought processes work. Eric Havelock and Milman Perry developed the notion that the epic poetry of classical civilizations acted as a sort of "cultural encyclopedia" of acceptable norms and values, transmitted by fixed tropes and poetic phrases. I don't recall Lévi-Strauss discussing the poetry of the Tupi Indians as a means of perpetuating the culture, but he does demonstrate how interconnected myths, based on concrete elements taken from their environment, can act as intellectual place holders for a non-literate population to help them consider complex systems of thought.
Our current system of myths is not only presented verbally, but also via images, in print, and even in interplay of biases amongst all of our competing media. Since we may be relearning this manner of thinking as we move deeper into secondary orality, Lévi-Strauss provides us with a map of where we may be headed.
When we use the terms, "oral" or "literate" or "post literate" in lieu of "primitive" or "modern", we are not referring to intellectual complexity or intelligence, but rather the modes of thought, the uses of systems of symbols and the religious, social and psychology outlooks encouraged or discouraged by a media environment.
I therefore suggest that the foundations of Media Ecological epistemology would benefit by the inclusion of some of the ideas contained in some of the writings of French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, including The Savage Mind, Totemism and any volume of Mythologiques, but especially, The Raw and the Cooked. Lévi-Strauss's work came at a time when anthropologists in general were abandoning the belief of James Frazer and the other pioneer anthropologists that pre-literate peoples were somehow more primitive, more childlike or less intellectually capable than modern man. (This viewpoint, by the way, still contributes to the foundation beliefs of all modern racism).
Lévi-Strauss's explorations of the structures of pre-literate societies demonstrated that there existed a complexity of thought and a subtlety of mind equal to our own. Some critics get hung up on discrepancies within the structural methodology which Lévi-Strauss used to explain mythology, totemic systems and kinship systems. Other criticism focus on how a particular interpretation doesn't fit the recorded ethnography for a culture. While the methodology itself, or its particular application may be subject to review and revision, what is important is that Levi-Strauss demonstrated that there is a universality to the human mind, and given sufficient symbolic material, all peoples, whether within an oral culture, a literate culture or our post literate culture still retain a commonality with can be explored through their symbol systems and perhaps understood in terms of the underlying structures transmitted via the stories we tell.
If it is possible to distinguish a "primitive" mind from our own then how could we apply Marshall McLuhan's Laws of the Media universally across all cultures and time periods? We can talk about the sensory impact of different types of communication media in different eras only if we accept that the basic mental equipment and the capacity for intellectual activity we are born with has been the same throughout all human history and everywhere in the world.
Lévi-Strauss's approach to the interpretation of so-called "primitive" cultures revealed the complex patterns of thought that went into the development of systems of myth and kinship. Building on the linguistic structuralism of Ferdinand de Saussure and the evolutionary approach to cultural studies of Franz Boas, his work exposed our own biases in the use of terms such as "primitive" and "modern" (even though Lévi-Strauss himself used these terms), and paved the way for Walter Ong's distinction between orality, literacy and secondary-orality as more appropriate explanations for differing cultures.
Levi-Strauss's notion that "primitive" intellectual activities were equal to our "modern" systems of knowledge, just applied to differing objects, put the entire body of anthropological writings, going back to James Fraser's Golden Bough into a new perspective. Lévi-Strauss discovered and demonstrated connections between seemingly disparate mythic stories, and offered explanations for seemingly random elements of those stories. His methodology can be used as model for ways to interpret the products of contemporary culture, which, while seeming to be unrelated, actually constitute a system (or systems) of symbolic meanings.
I find the tools Lévi-Strauss provides useful in a number of ways. I also think that his notion of "things that are good to think with" as powerful as Neil Postman's question regarding a new technology: "What problem does it provide a solution to?" I like Lévi-Strauss's idea that a myth is not a "false" story or idle tale, but rather a dynamic technique which members of a culture use to address cultural discrepancies. To me, this is a compelling explanation for why myths persist in a culture. It may also explain how, if we know where to look, we can identify the mythic systems of our own culture that provide us with a coherent world view in the face of constant change and turmoil.
Myths cannot be considered one at a time. One must absorb the entire canon of a culture to understand all the connections and interactions. That may be why we can't analyze Greek mythology properly. Too little of it has come down to us, and the versions we read have undergone so many revisions that they may not truly represent the originals.
I know that structural anthropology has been somewhat in eclipse in academic circles lately; that Lévi-Strauss has been accused of a binary focus that, being Hegelian in origin, cannot apply to current thinking about media. I think that to write off Lévi-Strauss's methodology as a thesis/antithesis/synthesis intellectual game misses the subtlety of his analysis. A closer reading of all 2200+ pages of his Mythologiques shows that, while he may begin an analysis by identifying polar opposites, this is only a starting point. The analysis of a mythic system must account for far more that just a pair of opposites.
In the course of his analysis of the myths of the Tupi Indians, Lévi-Strauss moves spiral-like through multiple mythic variations and multiple opposing pairs and by proceeding A to B and B to C, etc., demonstrates internal consistencies within the mythic system that aren't immediately apparent to an outside observer. In other words, Lévi-Strauss provides a useful tool for analysis regardless of whether you wish to extrapolate the function of the method to the deeper structures of the human mind or not. I also find Lévi-Strauss's methodology completely compatible with McLuhan's Laws of the Media. Where McLuhan, via the Tetrad asks us to consider what a technology or medium enhances, obsolesces, retrieves and reverses into, Lévi-Strauss will start with a pair of opposites "A" and "B", but in the course of his analysis will present examples of what he calls " A' " (A prime) and " B' " (B prime) as recursive iterations of the original pair. Perhaps someone will someday conduct a Lévi-Straussian analysis of McLuhan's system of myths.
Lévi-Strauss is also compatible with Ong's notions of primary orality. Ong discusses how different human thought processes must be in a pre-literate society. Lévi-Strauss gives example after example of exactly how these thought processes work. Eric Havelock and Milman Perry developed the notion that the epic poetry of classical civilizations acted as a sort of "cultural encyclopedia" of acceptable norms and values, transmitted by fixed tropes and poetic phrases. I don't recall Lévi-Strauss discussing the poetry of the Tupi Indians as a means of perpetuating the culture, but he does demonstrate how interconnected myths, based on concrete elements taken from their environment, can act as intellectual place holders for a non-literate population to help them consider complex systems of thought.
Our current system of myths is not only presented verbally, but also via images, in print, and even in interplay of biases amongst all of our competing media. Since we may be relearning this manner of thinking as we move deeper into secondary orality, Lévi-Strauss provides us with a map of where we may be headed.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Fwd: Lévi-Strauss Notes
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Blechman
Sent: 06/22/2007 02:06 PM
To: Rblechman.mepaper@blogspot.com
Subject: Lévi-Strauss Notes
Lévi-Strauss Notes
Criticism of L-S betrays a visual bias. If all isn't accounted forM it is
discounted
From Anatomy of Criticism p. 15:
"Similarly each modern science has had to take what Bacon calls (though in
another context) an inductive leap, occupying a new vantage ground from
which it can see its former data as new things to be explained."